Is there anything more soothing than a sleeping baby swan—known as a cygnet? Or anything more illustrative of the relationship between nature and urban development in the U.K. than the red fox, which are seen in neighborhoods as often as in the wild? For this year’s British Wildlife Photography Awards (BWPA), photographers from around Great Britain and its islands—including young, budding documentarians—highlight some of the region’s most beloved creatures.
Paul Hobson’s black-and-white image of a leaping, silhouetted toad takes top honors this year, captured at a pond near his home in Sheffield. He snapped the photo from inside the pond, having built a glass box that could settle into the water and protect his camera as the active amphibians bounding over it. The right shot took some patience, too, as toads would often swim over the box and sit on top of it rather than jumping across.
Additional category winners include Barry Webb’s slime molds, Sarah Darnell’s dramatic feud between two brown hares in Norfolk, Alastair Marsh’s bold portrait of a pine marten amid the heather in Arnamurchan, Scotland, and Jamie Smart’s up-close snap of a leaf-cutter bee peeping out from its nest.
Smart’s bold photo won the 11 and Under category, in which kids get to show their stuff. There are also 12 to 14 Years and 15 to 17 Years categories. “I adore bees and have spent a lot of time this year studying them and finding out about what I can do to help the wild bees around our garden thrive,” Smart says. She built a bee hotel for her back yard and managed to capture the leaf-cutter specimen peeking out from its safe place.
See all the winning images in BWPA’s online gallery, plus a print publication. And if you’d like to submit your own wildlife photos taken in Great Britain, you have until June 7 to enter your own images to next year’s contest.
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